The well known conventional drag mechanism includes a drag washer opposite to a spool rotatably supported to a spool shaft, the drag washer abutting against the spool during a drive mode to transmit a driving force thereto to thereby rotatably drive the spool, with the spool moving away from the drag washer during a free rotation mode, thereby being freely rotated.
Since such drag mechanism is provided adjacent to the spool which winds up thereon a fishing line, water attached to a fishing line during fishing, or wash water used for rinsing the reel, flows along the outer periphery of a spool flange so as to enter a chamber in a side frame of the reel, which houses therein the drag mechanism, whereby such water may become attached to the drag washer.
If the drag mechanism is used in a condition with water attached thereto, its sliding load is altered, thereby creating a problem in that a desired drag chatacteristic is not obtainable.
The present inventor has previously proposed in Japanese Utility Model Application No. Sho 59-165,943 a fishing reel which is provided with a cover covering the axial outside portion of the drag washer and having at the center a through bore through which the spool shaft passes, thereby preventing the drag washer from becoming affected by water entering into the chamber in the side frame through the outer periphery of the flange at the spool during the fishing.
Such fishing reel, however, has an annular gap between the inner periphery of the through bore at the cover and the outer periphery of the spool shaft, whereby water entering into the chamber in the side frame may enter through the gap into the cover to attach to the drag washer.
The gap, when closed by a sealing member, can reliably prevent water from entering into the cover. In this case, a lip of the sealing member must always make contact with the inner periphery of the cover or the outer periphery of the spool shaft, whereby even when the drag mechanism is not operated, in other words, when the spool freely rotates, the sealing member contacts the inner periphery of the through bore or the outer periphery of the spool shaft so as to increase a contact resistance applied by the sealing member. As a result, there is a problem in the rotation efficiency when the spool is freely rotated by putting the drag mechanism in a non-operating mode.